Every individual or national degeneration is immediately revealed by a directly proportional degradation in language.

I don't know what a scoundrel is like, but I know what a respectable man is like, and it's enough to make one's flesh creep.

All grandeur, all power, and all subordination to authority rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple and society disappears.

Man in general, if reduced to himself, is too wicked to be free.

There is no easy method of learning difficult things. The method is to close the door, give out that you are not at home, and work.

Reason speaks in words alone, but love has a song.

The concept of number is the obvious distinction between the beast and man. Thanks to number, the cry becomes a song, noise acquires rhythm, the spring is transformed into a dance, force becomes dynamic, and outlines figures.